vCenter Integration

Oscar Lopez · ‎08-11-2017

I want to populate the CMDB with VMs from vCenter, I just want to pull the VMs I don't need to procure VMs yet.

After reading the Wiki, I still don't know if at all SerivceNow Discovery and/or Orchestration is required to be enabled in order to just pull VMs.

I see that there is a related link "Discover vCenter Details" as per Wiki, does it means that it is actual Discovery feature running with a MID Server in order to "discover" the VMs?

bernyalvarado · ‎08-12-2017

Hi Oscar,

That's right. ServiceNow uses Discovery to discover the different VMs by interacting with VMWare VCenter.

As the documentation states:

Discovery can explore the VMware vCenter process running on a Windows or Linux host.

ServiceNow Discovery supports these vCenter versions:

vCenter versions 6.0 and earlier
vSphere version 5.5
vCenter appliance version 6.0 and earlier

See vCenter data collected for a description of the VMware architecture and component relationships.

When Discovery runs, a classifier called vCenter classifies the process running on a Windows or Linux machine.

Discovering vCenter CIs

After classifying vCenter, Discovery launches the VMware - vCenter Datacenters probe, which in turn launches specific probes that return information about ESX machines, virtual machines, and other vCenter objects.

Note: The vmapp port probe is also configured to launch the VMware - vCenter Datacenters probe.

If you use a domain account to access vCenter, specify the domain with the user name in the credential record in one of the supported formats such as Domain\UserName.

Thanks,

Berny

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sakshi23 · ‎06-12-2020

Hi Adrian,

Can you help me how to do this integration . I also have to do REST based SNOW integration with VM's without the need to purchase Discovery or Orchestration.

Regards

Sakshi

Arun Prasanth · ‎10-10-2018

Hi Oscar,

Did you get to a solution where you have done an integration with vCenter? I am looking for a similar kind as well, without discovery. Please let me know the outcome of your efforts.

Regards,

Arun

mehak1890 · ‎01-16-2020

Hi Arun/ Oscar,

I am also looking for vmware integration without discovery. I just want to pull data from vcenter. Could you pls share the best approach what method we can use for same?

1) Rest api or

2) JDBC , create data source connection and vcenter team give read only connection to mid server.

Thanks,

Mehak

s_rencorneliuss · ‎10-10-2018

Hi

We have made an integration to vCenter and are pulling VMs to the CMDB i ServiceNow via the I&R interface. (not using discovery)

Recipe (short version):

Make a Workflow which is run when you need it.
Make the workflow run a custom activity with script type "powershell"
Make the custom activity call as powershell script on your mid server (invoke-expression -Command "C:\\midservers\\PowerShellScripts\\VCenterIntegration.ps1")
Install PowerShell5/WMF5 and PowerCLI on the MID server. (PowerCLI is a wellknown Library to interact with vCenter).
Write the powerShell script to do ETL (Extract/Transform/Load)
1. Extract data from VCenter using PowerCLI
2. Transform data to required JSON format to ServiceNow I&R
3. Load data to ServiceNow I&R

Everything is easily tested on the MID server. I don't personally like having the powershell script specified in the custom activity as it is not so easy to debug.

Best regards

Søren

Arun Prasanth · ‎10-10-2018

Thanks much Soren!

I'll explore this and get back for any further queries:)